Promoting the Full Inclusion of Women in the Church and Society

Significant Moments

1769 – The British colonies
adopt the English system decreeing women cannot own property in their own name
or keep their own earnings.

1777– All
states of the newly founded United States pass laws which take away women’s
right to vote.

1809 – The first woman, Mary
Kies becomes to receive a patent, for a method of weaving straw with silk.

1839 – Mississippi
becomes the first state to grant women the right to hold property in their own
names with permission from their husbands.

1848 – Three hundred
women and men sign the Declaration of Sentiments, a plea for the end of
discrimination against women at Seneca Falls, New York.

1866 – The 14th Amendment is
passed by U.S. Congress, with “citizens” and “voters”
defined as “male” in the Constitution.

1869– Arabella
Mansfield is granted admission to practice law in Iowa, making her the first
woman lawyer.

1872– The
first woman presidential candidate in the United States, Victoria Claflin
Woodhull is nominated by the National Radical Reformers.

Female federal employees
guaranteed equal pay for equal work under the law excluding private sector
workers.

Susan B. Anthony is
convicted of “unlawful voting”, when she casts her first vote to test
whether the 14th Amendment would be interpreted broadly to guarantee women the
right to vote.

1873– The U.S.
Supreme Court rules that a state has the right to exclude a married woman from
practicing law.

1887– Susanna
Medora Salter becomes the first woman elected mayor of an American town, in
Argonia, Kansas.

1890 – Wyoming becomes
the first state to grant women the right to vote in all elections.

1900 – By the turn of the
Twentieth Century every state had passed legislation granting married women the
right to keep their own wages and to own property in their own name.

1916 – Jeannette Rankin,
of Montana, is the first woman to be elected to the U.S. House of
Representatives

1918 – Two years after
opening a birth control clinic in Brooklyn, Margaret Sanger wins her suit in
New York to allow doctors to advise their married patients about birth control
for health purposes. The clinic, along with others, becomes Planned Parenthood
in 1942.

1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, ensuring the right of women to vote.

1923 – The Lucretia Mott
Amendment calling for equal rights is introduced. It says, “Men and women
shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to
its jurisdiction.”

1932– Hattie
Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas, becomes the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate.

The National Recovery
Act forbids more than one family member from holding a government job,
resulting in many women losing their jobs.

1933– The
first female cabinet member Frances Perkins is appointed U.S. Secretary of Labor
by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1934 – Jeanette Ridon Piccard was the first licensed female balloon
pilot in the U.S., and the first woman to fly to the stratosphere. Accompanied by her husband, Jean
—a member of the Piccard family of balloonists —she reached a
height of 10.9 miles (17.5 km) during a record-breaking flight over Lake
Erie on October 23, retaining
control of the balloon for the entire flight.

1963 – The Equal Pay Act
is passed by U.S. Congress, promising equitable wages for the same work,
regardless of the race, color, religion, national origin or sex of the worker.

1974 – Housing
discrimination on the basis of sex and credit discrimination against women are
outlawed by Congress.

The U.S. Supreme Court
rules it is illegal to force pregnant women to take maternity leave on the
assumption they are incapable of working in their physical condition.

Eleven women are ordained as priests in the Episcopal Church on July 29, 1974, two years before General Convention affirmed and explicitly authorized the ordination to the priesthood. The women who became known as the “Philadelphia Eleven” (or “Philadelphia 11”) were Merrill Bittner, Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Alison Cheek, Emily Hewitt, Carter Heyward, Suzanne Hiatt, Marie Moorefield, Jeannette Piccard, Betty Bone Schiess, Katrina Swanson, and Nancy Wittig.

1975 – The U.S. Supreme
Court denies states the right to exclude women from juries.

1981 – Sandra Day
O’Connor becomes first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Supreme Court
rules that excluding women from the draft is constitutional. In a separate
decision, the high court overturns state laws designating a husband “head
and master” with unilateral control of property owned jointly with his
wife.

Breaking with tradition,
Lady Diana Spencer deletes the vow to “obey” her husband as she
marries Prince Charles.

1982 – The Equal Rights Amendment
falls three state short of ratification.

The state of Mississippi
belatedly ratifies the 19th Amendment, granting women the vote.

1989 – The Supreme Court
affirms the right of states to deny public funding for abortions and to
prohibit public hospitals from performing abortions.

1992 – In Planned
Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v Casey, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds
Roe v Wade but allows states to impose restrictions such as a waiting period
and parental consent for minors seeking abortions.

1994 – The Violence
Against Women Act funds services for victims of rape and domestic violence and
allows women to seek civil rights remedies for gender-related crimes. Six years
later, the Supreme Court invalidates those portions of the law permitting
victims of rape, domestic violence, etc. to sue their attackers in federal
court.

1997 – Madeleine Albright
become the first female U.S. Secretary of State.

2005 – U.S. Congress
passes the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, the first law to ban a specific
abortion procedure. The Supreme Court upholds the ban the following year.

2007– Nancy
Pelosi becomes the first female speaker of the House.

2009– The
Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act allows victims, usually women, of pay
discrimination to file a complaint with the government against their employer
within 180 days of their last paycheck.

2012– U.S.
Representative Tammy Baldwin introduces legislation in the U.S. Congress calling
for the removal of the deadline imposed on the Equal Rights Amendment known as
the “Three State Strategy”.

2012– The
Paycheck Fairness Act, meant to fight gender discrimination in the workplace,
fails in the U.S. Senate on a party-line vote. Two years later, Republicans
filibuster the bill.

2013– The
ban against women in military combat positions is removed, reversing a 1994
Pentagon decision, restricting women from combat roles.

2015 – Helene de Boissiere-Swanson completes her 7,000
mile pilgrimage covering the remaining 15 states that have yet to ratify the
Equal Rights Amendment arriving in Washington DC on Women’s Equality Day.

2017– Nevada becomes the first state in over 45
years to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Illinois ratifies the following
year leaving only one more state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment into the
U.S. Constitution.

2018– The Violence Against Women Act expires on
December 21st, during the U.S. Congressional government shutdown.

2019– U.S. Representative Jackie Speier and U.S.
Senator Benjamin Carden introduce joint resolutions calling for the removal of
deadline on the Equal Rights Amendment. U.S Representative Jerrold Nadler Chair
of the Committee of Judiciary of the House of Representatives pledges to hold
hearings.